Hot Cider and Bedtime Stories
by MTGirlForever
Summary: What do Loki, arrows, line-dancing, and hot cider have in common? The answer to that question might just be the key to Hawkeye sleeping again at night after the battle for New York...if he doesn't accidentally kill Captain America first. No slash - just friendship.


Fifty pictures of Loki papered the wall of Tony Stark's underground, state of the art shooting range. Each was a different size and some were pinned to the wall in odd positions, but forty-nine had one thing in common: each had an arrow through the right eye. As he'd fired arrow after arrow from every conceivable angle, one mantra had pounded in his brain on repeat. _If I put an arrow through Loki's eye socket, I'd sleep better, I suppose. _

Hawkeye lined himself up in front of the life-size photograph of Loki, dead-center on the wall. With a deep breath, he slowly drew back the arrow. Only an ounce of pressure remained to be released before the arrow flew true once more.

"Did it help?" a low, soft voice asked quietly.

With a startled yelp, Hawkeye jumped. His hand slipped and for the first time that he could remember, his arrow failed to go true. Instead, guided by the jerk on the bow string, it sailed high and to the right, embedding itself just a few inches below the ceiling in the far corner of the room.

Even as the arrow left the bow, Hawkeye was yanking his knife from his boot and whirling around, knife up and ready to throw. When he saw the figure leaning in the doorway, arms crossed casually, he let it drop down to his side with a rattled sigh.

"Jus' how exactly do you do that, Cap? That's the second time in three months that you've been able to get into the same room as me without my knowing. Not even Tash can do that."

Steve, to his credit, hadn't so much as batted an eye when Clint spun on him, ready to throw a knife that he had no doubt would have hit him straight in the heart and killed him instantly, super-soldier or no, had he actually thrown it.

"Jus' lucky, I guess," Steve replied with a bright grin. "Or maybe it's called trust."

"One of these days I might not stop myself," Hawkeye shot back, refusing to acknowledge just how much his heart was pounding from nearly having thrown the knife.

Steve had slipped across the room to stand alongside the archer. "You'll stop, Clint. You're too good a man not to - no matter how rattled you get you always check your target."

Clint snorted. "You put too much trust in me, Cap."

"I don't think so. You're a good man, Clint. You'd stop yourself, jus' like you did just now."

"Yeah? If I'm such a good man how come Loki could take me over?"

Expecting a response something along the lines he had no control over it, which he was in no mood to hear at the moment, Hawkeye was surprised instead to see Steve snatch up Clint's pistol, lying on the small table beside him, and trigger off six shots, framing Loki's face but not actually touching it. It was the most emotion the soldier would allow himself to express at the demi-god for causing Clint so much pain. Clint blinked in astonishment. "Didn't know you could do that, Cap."

"You forget I was a soldier. Bucky taught me a thing or two about guns, too. He was the best there was - as good as you are with a bow and arrow."

He spun on his heel suddenly, facing the archer. The other man's face was pale and Steve didn't think it had a thing to do with the harsh lighting in the room. "When's the last time you slept, Clint?"

"Huh?" Clint started faintly, caught completely off guard. He'd gone from nearly killing his best friend to expecting a rebuke to witnessing some of the finest marksmanship he'd ever seen and now the Captain was asking about the last time he'd slept? He shook his head as if to clear it.

"I asked when you slept last," Steve replied mildly. "I heard you slip out of the apartment and when Jarvis said you weren't in the air ducts it wasn't much of a deduction to figure out where you'd be."

Still attempting to regain his mental balance, Clint mumbled, "Uh, I dunno. Probably a week or so."

Steve nodded disapprovingly. "That's about what I figured. Come'n, I'll make something hot to drink. It'll help."

Clint rolled his eyes. "Come'n, Cap, you really think a hot drink an' a bedtime story are gonna fix all this?" he demanded sarcastically, waving an arm at the figures pinned on the wall. His nerves were too raw and exposed by this point to have any respect left for his best friend.

"No, but it can't hurt either," Steve replied honestly.

With a sigh and recognizing an immovable force when he saw one, Clint finally gave in. He insisted to himself that it had nothing to do with the fact that his hands were trembling slightly from exhaustion and that a hot drink actually did sound good. Slinging his bow across his shoulder, he waved his hand slightly. "Lead on, Cap."

Steve, having the common sense to realize that touching the archer when he was in this mood could be nothing but disastrous, conceded a small victory when he saw one and led the way toward the elevator.

The rest of the tower was eerily still, as it was three o'clock in the morning. However, when the two men entered their shared apartment, their cat Avenger rubbed against Clint's legs, almost as if he sensed his mood. Unable to resist the cat even when he would have rejected physical touch from anyone else, Clint propped his bow against the wall and scooped the cat up, petting it gently as it rubbed against his chin. Steve smirked slightly as he saw some of the tension ease from the archer's shoulders. That cat had more than earned its keep as the team's de-facto psychiatrist in the three months they'd owned it. After a particularly tough day, any member of the team could be found in their apartment, ostensibly to visit Clint or Steve, but really to pet Avenger. Even Tony, a self-proclaimed cat hater, had been found curled up on the couch with the cat purring contentedly on his lap.

Five minutes later, seated at the kitchen table cradling a steaming cup of hot cider and Avenger parked on his lap, even Clint had to admit that he felt marginally better. Steve sat across from him, similarly clutching a cup of scolding hot chocolate that nearly disappeared in his huge hands.

They sat in a relatively companionable silence for a few minutes before Steve finally asked softly, "So, did it help?"

"No," Clint mumbled reluctantly after a long hesitation. "I really thought it would - that's what I kept tellin' myself on the helicarrier as soon as Nat told me that whoever was left was goin' in after him. But it didn't help. Every night, if I actually manage to fall asleep, the only thing I see is me pullin' back my bow an' the port engine blowing, or Loki's evil grin when he zapped me. Thought that'd get rid of it."

"Clint, the only thing that's ever gonna help is to forgive him."

Clint's hand smashed down on the table, rattling the cup and sloshing a bit of cider over the side, but remarkably Avenger remained completely unconcerned. "How can you say that, Cap? How can I forgive him? You know that serum stuff they gave you - how they told you it would bring out all the strong traits you have? Well, this was pretty much the same thing, only the only thing it brought out was all the bad in me. I didn't have much good in me to begin with, Steve, so how can I possibly forgive the man who destroyed what little good I do have?" Clint's heart sounded like it was breaking, and Steve realized that was probably exactly what was happening.

"Line-dancing," Steve murmured.

Clint set down his cup hard and looked at the Captain, blank astonishment on his face. "`s'cuse me?" he demanded, utterly puzzled. Granted, nothing that had happened thus far since Steve had found him in the shooting range had made a whole lot of sense to the archer, but still, that statement seemed to have come from far left field.

"Line-dancing," Steve repeated softly. "I was going to take her line-dancing."

For the first time since Steve had found him almost an hour ago, Clint's voice softened. "Steve?" he murmured, stretching a hand across to rest lightly on Steve's arm.

"Promised Peggy I'd take her line-dancing as soon as I got back." Steve's voice was so soft that Clint had to strain to hear it. The Captain chuckled suddenly. "Even promised her I wouldn't step on her toes `cause I finally had the right partner."

Clint sat back hard in his chair. The soldier was chock full of surprises tonight. "You mean you blamed her?" he prodded, confusion obvious in his voice.

Steve laughed softly. "Not in a million years, Clint. Nope - I blamed the man who put me in that position. If Red Skull hadn't had a plane full of bombs headed straight for New York, I could have put it down gently in the ocean, waited it out for a few hours, and been home to dance with Peggy before the day was over. As it was, I had to crash the plane to save New York, an' when I finally woke up seventy years later, all I knew was that I was too late `cause she'd died four years ago. I've never felt such hatred in my life, Clint. All I wanted to do was go back in time an' throttle the life out of Red Skull before he ever had the chance to ruin every bit of my life."

That Clint could understand and he nodded slightly. "Yeah. So jus' how did you get over that? That's some pretty understandable feelings right there - makes a wale of a lot more sense than that forgiveness stuff you're tryin' to get me to do."

"That didn't happen right away. You should have seen the amount of punching bags I decimated, and then I got so desperate that ending it all just seemed the way to go. I couldn't handle the pain and hate any more. So I opened my drawer and reached for my gun, but then some little voice whispered in my ear, 'Try forgiving him.' I swear I didn't want to listen, Clint, but try as I might I couldn't ignore that little voice. I put the gun away and thought about it for several days. I tried to justify it that Peggy and Bucky would understand, but somehow that jus' didn't work. Finally I gave up and I forgave the man."

Clint scoffed, "You tryin' to tell me that as soon as you did that, everything was all hunky-dory?"

Steve shook his head slowly. "Nope. The pain is still there, and I still wish with every fiber of my being that he hadn't done it, but the hatred is gone. Gradually I discovered that I was sleeping better at night for the simple reason that that poison wasn't eating away at my soul."

Steve looked across the table and felt a slight weakening in the archer's resolve. "Awfully hard to forgive somebody who took your soul an' played games with it."

"Didn't ever say it'd be easy, Hawkeye. Just said that it was what you needed to do to move on with your life. If you hold on to that hatred, Loki's got just as much power and control over you as he did when he put that spear to your chest. You didn't let him win before, so why on earth would you let him do it now?"

"I didn't get him out before - Nat did - cognitive re-calibration, she called it," he added with a short, fond chuckle. "So that means he won."

"Doesn't matter, Hawkeye. If he'd completely destroyed who you were, the good wouldn't have overcome the bad. The good came out in the end, Clint, not the evil. So he lost. Don't you dare let him win now!"

Clint sat in quiet reflection for a few minutes, allowing Steve's words to sink in. "Do I have to like him?" he asked reluctantly.

Steve burst into a genuine laugh. "Clint, I'd be seriously concerned if you did."

"You know, Cap, you've got a real convincing way of sayin' things. It never occurred to me that holdin' on to it would be lettin' him win, an' I sure don't want that to happen. He took way too much from me - I can't let him have it all." He hesitated for a long minute before whispering ever so softly. "So I guess what I'm trying to say is...I forgive him, Steve."

A wide grin split Steve's face. "So no more arrows through eye sockets?" he teased gently.

Clint threw back his head and laughed, a real, genuine laugh like he hadn't let loose since before Loki came along, and it felt remarkably good. "No, no more arrows through eye sockets," he promised.

"Good! Now, get some sleep before you keel over, soldier, an' that's an order!" Steve barked fondly.

"Aye, aye, Cap," Clint shot back, saluting sloppily. He pushed back from the table and stood after gently moving the cat, only to waver badly and grab onto the edge of the table for an instant before regaining his equilibrium. With a tired grin at Steve's triumphant look, he plodded wearily to his bedroom. He hesitated in the doorway, turning to look back. "Thanks, Cap," he said quietly.

Steve simply smiled in understanding and nodded.

That night Clint Barton slept better than he could remember in years, his sleep for once completely undisturbed by nightmares. The following day, when he joined the rest of the Avengers for lunch, he leaned close to Steve and murmured in his ear, "Guess hot cider an' bed time stories really do work."

Captain America grinned widely and the two chuckled at their inside joke, much to the puzzlement of the rest of the team.

The pictures of Loki disappeared before the rest of the team saw them, but the one misfired arrow remained imbedded in the wall. Clint received much teasing about this, but he took it all with a quiet grin and refused to reveal how it had gotten there. And whenever he felt that bitter taste of hate forming in his mouth, he gazed at the lone arrow and was reminded about the healing power of forgiveness.


End file.
